The Marauder's Map
by rosemarried
Summary: Lily discovers the Marauder's Map in her 7th year. Thanks to PSDancer for all her help. Not a romantic comedy, but a romance with comedy... Never mind, that made no sense. Rated T because.


**A head warning: this is not my best work. I wrote it for Ginny-the-red-head's The Story and for the first round I had to write Romance with Comedy... Not my usual. I think I made it work, but... I don't know, I'm just a bit nervous about it. Review and let me know. **

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James walked down the hallway under the Invisibility Cloak, listening hard for the sound of a teachers footsteps. It was well past midnight and James was returning from a kitchen raid in which he had managed to secure a large bag full of butterbeer, cakes, and even a bottle of firewhiskey. He was tingling with excitement and triumph as he always did after a successful raid. There was something about knowing you had managed to put one over on someone, even if it was just a house-elf, that made him feel like he could do anything. One day he would work up the nerve to prank Dumbledore; even he shuddered to think of the consequences. But he would do it; it was his goal.

But other things were occupying his mind tonight; Lily Evans was one of them. The other was... Well, there was no other. Just Lily. Her long red hair and bright green eyes, her bright tinkling laugh and even when she shouted and stormed, she was still amazing. She was just so passionate. One of the many reasons James had long since fallen head over heels for her.

She also happened to be sitting in the common room, staring at the portrait hole when he came in. His heart sank; he would never hear the end of this. 'Well, the jig is up.' he thought hopelessly, and pulled off his cloak, managing a weak smile in his girlfriends direction.

"Good evening, Lily dear." he said feebly. He braced himself for a lecture and explosion of the passion he had been thinking of just seconds ago - but it never came. Instead, Lily stood smiling, and walked over to give him a quick kiss and peer in his bag.

"What did you nick?" she asked, disapproval in her voice that she had tried to suppress. James opened the bag slowly, warily. Lily's face lit up. "Butterbeer!" she exclaimed. She took a bottle carefully so as to not make a lot of noise and uncapped it, taking a sip. James carefully placed the bag on the floor.

"Lily... Are you all right?" he asked tentatively. Lily grinned.

"Yes of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, for one, you didn't try to kill me when I came in after curfew - with alcohol, no less." Lily only waved this off.

"Exams are coming up. I'm stressed as hell and I figure I need to loosen up a bit or I'm going to kill myself with all the worrying I do." she said, taking another swig of her butterbeer. James only looked at her for a while, unsure, but decided that he wasn't going to waste her finally loosening up a bit.

Sirius headed down the stairs, closely followed by Remus and Peter. Sirius grinned when he saw James, momentarily frowned when he saw Lily, but then smiled again as he walked towards James and grabbed the bag eagerly.

"Excellent!" he said and grabbed a bottle of butterbeer for himself as well as one for Remus and Peter. Peter took his bottle and moved over to the bag to examine what it contained as far as food went.

"Lily, you do realize what you're drinking, right?" Remus asked. Lily nodded.

"Of course, it's butterbeer." she said. Remus blinked.

"Oh..." he apparently had nothing left to say. After a few seconds, he shrugged and uncapped his bottle. James pulled the Marauders Map out and tossed it to Remus, who caught it in his free hand.

"It still needs some work." he said. "The staircases move on the map while they aren't moving in the castle." Remus nodded and started to unfold the map.

"Alright, I'll work on it." Lily watched curiously.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Map of the castle." Sirius told her. "It shows everything and everyone in it." Lily looked amazed.

"Can I see it?" she asked after a minute. Remus nodded and handed over the parchment. Lily looked at it confused.

"There's... Nothing here." she said, turning it over to look for a map on the other side. Sirius grinned, seeing a new opportunity for a prank.

"You've just got to tell it your name and ask it to open while tapping it with your wand." James looked horrified, but suddenly found himself unable to speak; his tongue had just been glued to his mouth. He glared daggers at Sirius, who looked uncharacteristically innocent. Lily pulled out her wand and tapped the page.

"Lily Evans requests that you open." she said clearly. James buried his face in his hands and shook his head; he couldn't watch this. Remus choked on his butterbeer, evidently only just realizing what Sirius had done.

'Mr. Prongs extends his greetings to Ms. Evans and advises her to stop intruding on other people's business.' Sirius paled slightly. Hopefully it wouldn't occur to her who 'Mr. Prongs' was. But it really was very funny and he couldn't help but snorting.

'Mr. Padfoot would like her to know that it is rude, even if she is Head Girl, so she should sod off.' Sirius laughed at that one. He would say something like this; the map knew him so well.

'Mr. Moony would like her to know that her hair makes her appear to be on fire, and not in the good way.' Remus did not find this amusing. He never thought that Lily's hair made her appear on fire! Okay, well maybe he had a few times, but only as a joke, and this made him seem cynical! There was no denying that he was Moony; he could only blush and turn away.

'Mr. Wormtail bids Ms. Evans fair well and would like to inform her that the Muggles have this thing called hair dye; she might try some.' Sirius kicked Peter in the leg and he came up from the bag, clutching something that looked like a large bag of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, but we're labeled as something called "jellybeans". Sirius ignored his snack and motioned to the paper. Peter glanced at it and choked on whatever snack he had in his mouth, whethe from mirth or horror no one could tell. James chanced a glance at the paper and read quickly before groaning quietly. He would never hear the end of this. He looked up at his beautiful Lily; what would she say?

He expected shouting. He expected anger. He expected a lecture about how this could be detrimental this could be to someone's self esteem and did they know how many people would be hurt by such a creation? He didn't expect - could he be seeing things? - a solitary tear to run down her face. Then, as quick as it had appeared, it was gone and she looked up, mixed amusement and exasperation on her face.

"I would ask how you could possibly create something like this, but I won't bother. I already know the answer." Remus quickly took the map back.

"That was Sirius's idea of a joke. It's a protection enchantment." he explained. "So that not just anyone can access it. That could be bad." he pulled out his own wand and touched it to the paper, clearing his throat. He then said clearly, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Instantly, lines of black ink spread from the tip of his wand, connecting and forming rooms, then staircases, hallways, until it all came together into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Lily looked awestruck and slowly took the newly revealed map from Remus. She watched the dots that represented professors work at their desks, the headmaster pace his office, their own dots sitting in a cluster in Griffindor common room.

"This is... just amazing." she breathed. James grinned and put his arm around Lily.

"Remus is the genius behind it." he said. "He drew most of it and was the one who perfected all the enchantments." Lily beamed at each of them in turn.

"Is it to scale?" she asked. Remus nodded.

"We measured every hallway and scaled it down as much as possible without making it too small to let the dots move through without making it hard to read the names." he told her. Lily's eyes opened wide.

"You put that much effort into this?" she asked. She now handled the map with extreme delicacy, as though afraid she would break it. "Wow... Just wow." she said.

It was hours before anyone even thought about bed. It was nice, all of them could agree, just to spend some time laughing and talking. What with NEWT's coming up and the pile of homework they were assigned every night, one had to schedule time to do trivial things such as sleep and eat. It was so stressful for everyone; down time was rare, and they were determined to enjoy it, even if they should have been sleeping.

"I'm going to bed, guys." Remus finally said somewhere near midnight, standing and stretching. "I have an Arithmancy test tomorrow." Sirius stood as well.

"Yeah, I have a test in... A class as well." Sirius said. He grabbed Peter and dragged him after him. "C'mon." Peter scrabbled for a hold while Sirius dragged him away toward the stairs, but found none. He didn't dare tell out this late, and was reduced to giving Lily and James pathetic puppy dog eyes that only made James laugh and Lily look sympathetic.

After the door had closed behind the three, James said, "Lily?" She turned to look at him curiously. "Earlier when the map was... Y'know saying that stuff, did it bother you?" he asked awkwardly.

"No of course not." Lily said after a pause. "It... was just a joke, right? Why should it bother me?" Although she didn't sound entirely sure of herself.

James wasn't going to push at first, but he knew from dealing with Sirius that it wasn't good for people to keep things bottled up. "Lily... Please tell me." he said simply. Lily looked at him for a minute, the emotion on her face unrecognizable. Finally, she sighed and nodded.

"Alright, it... It did bother me a bit." James put his arm around her.

"I'm sorry." he said softly. Lily shook her head.

"No, it's not your fault." she said. "It... I didn't mind because it was mean or hurt my feelings... It reminded me of my sister." A single tear streaked down her cheek and her voice cracked slightly at the thought of her sister. "We used to be so close, but after I got my letter she started calling me horrible names, a lot like what the map said." she confided in him. "I wasn't crying because I was upset about the names themselves. I just miss Petunia." she buried her head in James's shoulder and cried. James held her and ran his hand through her hair soothingly, rocking slightly. He didn't try to stop her tears, he just sat there and held her, let her know he was there. He didn't try to cheer her up, but let her be sad. If she didn't get it out now it would haunt here horribly for her entire life. He couldn't really understand what she was going through because he was raised by wizards and had no siblings, but he would certainly try.

Eventually, Lily lifted her head and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry for breaking down over something so small." she said. James shook his head.

"Don't apologize." he said. "It's not something small, not to you. I don't mind if you have to cry sometimes, it's natural. You need to let your feelings out, not bottle them up." he smiled gently at her. Lily smiled back.

"Thank you, James." Lily hugged her boyfriend again and kissed him softly. "I should go to bed. Sirius doesn't know it, but he's right. We have a Defense test tomorrow." James laughed and kissed her once more before saying goodnight and letting her go off to the girls dormitory. He stared after her for a while. This beautiful, smart, amazing girl was all his... And he wasn't going to let her go.


End file.
